Madrid: A Spanish court has acquitted Shakira in a tax fraud case, ordering the government to return more than €55 million ($89.4 million) in wrongly imposed fines, a court document seen by The Associated Press on Monday (Madrid time) said.
The decision follows years of tax problems in Spain for the Colombian star.
The latest exemption relates to the 2011 tax year in which Spanish authorities failed to prove that the singer was a Spanish resident, the Madrid-based court said in its ruling. A person must stay more than 183 days in Spain to be considered a tax resident.
Spanish authorities were only able to prove that Shakira lived in Spain that year for a total of 163 days, the court said, ordering the Treasury to refund the singer the tax paid with interest.
The Spanish tax agency said that at the time Shakira was tied to Spain through a relationship with now-retired soccer player Gerard Piqué and that she focused on her main economic activities in the country.
But the Supreme Court decided that the relationship cannot be legally compared to a marriage, nor was it proven that the “main center or basis” of Shakira’s activities or economic interests in 2011 were directly or indirectly in Spain.
“There was no fraud, and the Tax Agency itself could never prove otherwise, simply because it was not true,” Shakira, who had appealed, said in a statement released by her lawyers.
The Spanish treasury will repay the singer 60 million euros ($97.5 million), including interest, Shakira’s lawyer said.
“This resolution comes after an eight-year trial that has taken an unacceptable step, showing a lack of rigor in administrative practices,” his lawyer, José Luís Prada, said in a statement.
In 2023, in a separate tax fraud case, Shakira reached an agreement with Spanish prosecutors to avoid trial on charges that she failed to pay 14.5 million euros (about $23 million) in Spanish income tax between 2012 and 2014.
The singer accepted the charges and was ordered to pay €7.3 million (about $11 million) plus unpaid taxes and interest.
The Hips Don’t lie the singer was named in the 2017 “Paradise Papers” leak which detailed the offshore tax schemes of many high-profile figures, including pop icons Madonna and U2’s Bono.
Spain’s tax authorities have, over the past decade or so, cracked down on soccer stars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo for not paying all their taxes.
The players were found guilty of tax evasion but avoided jail time due to a provision that allows a judge to waive sentences of less than two years for first-time offenders.
AP
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